U.S. Expels Sudanese Diplomat Suspected of Aiding Terrorists

The United States has ordered the expulsion of a Sudanese diplomat suspected of aiding terrorists who plotted to blow up the United Nations and assassinate Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

U.S. officials told Ahmed Yousif Mohamed, a second secretary at the Sudanese mission to the United Nations, on Tuesday that he had 48 hours to leave the country, James P. Rubin, a spokesman at the U.S. mission, said Wednesday.

He said Mohamed had “been identified as being involved in terrorist and espionage activities, including involvement in connection with the plot to bomb the United Nations.”

A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Mohamed and a second Sudanese diplomat, Siraj Yousif, were suspected of giving information to terrorists in 1993. Yousif has already left New York.

Last week, U.S. Ambassador Madeleine Albright told members of the Security Council that two members of the Sudanese mission were aiding terrorists.

On Wednesday, Sudanese officials dismissed the U.S. claims but said Mohamed has left the country.

“We . . . categorically refute as baseless any allegation or suggestion relating to the involvement of diplomats, the mission or its staff in such activities,” said Hamid Ali Mohamed Eltinay, Sudan’s deputy ambassador to the United Nations.

Albright had addressed the council as it considered imposing sanctions against Sudan for its alleged participation in a 1995 assassination attempt against Mubarak in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

The council is expected to resume its discussion of the sanctions next week.

Ethiopia claims that three suspects fled to Sudan, but Khartoum maintains that it cannot find them or verify they were even in the country.

Federal prosecutors listed the Sudanese mission to the United Nations as an unindicted conspirator in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, which killed six people, and in a plan to blow up the United Nations, the Lincoln and Holland tunnels, the George Washington Bridge and a federal building in New York City.

Last year, 10 people, including Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, were convicted in the plot and sentenced to terms ranging from 25 years to life.

A Sudanese-born defendant, Siddig Ibrihim Siddig Ali, pleaded guilty during the trial but has not been sentenced.